Abstract P4-08-17: Repurposing proteasome inhibitors for improved treatment of triple-negative breast cancer
Authors: Peter Larsson, Daniella Pettersson, Maxim Olsson, Eva Forssell-Aronsson, Anikó Kovács, Per Karlsson, Khalil Helou, Toshima Z. Parris
Journal: Cancer Research (2023)

Abstract Background: The de novo drug development process is expensive and challenging, with a high risk of failure. Drug repurposing can ideally identify novel therapeutic indications for FDA-approved drugs with pre-existing pre-clinical and clinical evidence. Both aspirin and tamoxifen drugs are good examples of successful drug repurposing in oncology. Although proteasome inhibitors such as bortezomib and carfilzomib are currently only used to treat multiple myeloma and basal cell lymphoma, we and others have shown that triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is particularly sensitive to proteasome inhibition. TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer with an urgent need for novel treatment options. Here, we evaluate the potency of proteasome inhibitors and other clinically relevant chemotherapeutic agents on TNBC cell lines. Methods: We performed a high-throughput drug sensitivity screen with eight cell lines representing the four TNBC subtypes (basal-like 1: HCC70 and MDA-MB-468; basal-like 2: HCC1806 and MDA-MB-436; mesenchymal-like: BT-549 and HCC38; luminal androgen receptor: CAL-148 and MDA-MB-435) and MCF-7 as control (estrogen and progesterone receptor-positive) exposed to 18 drugs (11 proteasome inhibitors, 2 mitosis inhibitors, 2 topoisomerase inhibitors, and 3 platinum agents) for 24 hours. Drug potency was determined using the IC50, GR50, GRmax drug metrics. IDACombo was then used to predict efficacious drug combinations, followed by calculation of synergistic drug combinations with SynergyFinder. Results: TNBC cell lines were generally more sensitive to proteasome inhibitors with significantly reduced cell viability than clinically relevant drugs, e.g. paclitaxel. Although the potency of different proteasome inhibitors varied, the most potent proteasome inhibitors included bortezomib, carfilzomib, delanzomib, epoxomicin, and MLN-2238. According to the GR50 values, HCC38 (range, 8.2-382.7 nM) and MDA-MB-468 (range, 10.8-110.6 nM) were most sensitive to proteasome inhibition, whereas the least sensitive TNBC cell lines were HCC1806 (range, 289.9-Inf nM) and BT-549 (range, 101.0-Inf nM). Using the drug sensitivity screening results for single drugs, IDACombo predicted potent drug combinations for different combinations of bortezomib, carboplatin, carfilzomib, delanzomib, docetaxel, doxorubicin, epirubicin, epoxomicin, MLN-2238, MLN-9708, and nedaplatin. Conclusions: In summary, some proteasome inhibitors (e.g. bortezomib) had a substantial impact on TNBC cell survival. These findings indicate that proteasome inhibitors, together with other forms of chemotherapy, may be further explored as a novel complement treatment for TNBC. Citation Format: Peter Larsson, Daniella Pettersson, Maxim Olsson, Eva Forssell-Aronsson, Anikó Kovács, Per Karlsson, Khalil Helou, Toshima Z. Parris. Repurposing proteasome inhibitors for improved treatment of triple-negative breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2022 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2022 Dec 6-10; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(5 Suppl):Abstract nr P4-08-17.